DURGA JASRAJ – PROFILE

Durga Jasraj Founder Director – Art And Artistes’ (I) Pvt. Ltd has spent the last 25 years playing multi-faceted roles. Starting at the age of 7 years as a Classical Vocalist & Recording Artiste, she moved on to another form of Performing Arts – Theatre. She also pursued a professional Modeling (Print and Television) career. She became part of Indian Television history as the popular Host of the most successful game show on Indian TV to date – ‘Antakshari’. Her next calling was that of an Actor in various popular Television programs, which included some of the most popular soaps at the time.
In the year 1999, Durga decided to setup her own company, Art & Artistes’ (I) Pvt. Ltd. to work as an Independent Content Developer and Producer. The 11 year old company has conceived path-breaking Content properties weaving Music, Poetry, Light & Sound, etc. with top line artistes performing. The concepts have been executed successfully across media platforms (viz. On-ground, Television, Online, Radio, Mobile, etc.), and have traveled extensively across the length and breadth of India as well more than 20 countries. Art and Artistes’ (I) Pvt. Ltd produced the very successful Tiranga, a celebrating our National Flag, Panchatatva-celebrating the 5 elements of Nature, Golden Voice, Golden Years-a multimedia celebration of what Durga terms ‘musicography’ of her father Sangeet Martand Padma Vibhushan Pandit Jasraj, Jai Hind – Musical Salute to the Nation-song and video to celebrate India’s 60th year of independence supported by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India, Idea Jalsa – Music for the Soul, the largest single platform of Indian music, now on Zee TV and many others…

Apart from charting the growth plans of her company, she is currently lending her name and experience to driving National level Music Industry advocacy initiatives through the couple of associations/ bodies she heads. In 2006, she launched the Indian Music Academy (IMA) to sustain the momentum that emerged from business enterprise. IMA organized India’s first complete Indian Music National Talent Hunt which was aired on DD National. IMA has not only provided them with 2 years stipend to the 6 winners of the mega event (where more than 3000 musicians competed) but also grooming and supporting them to become professional musicians. IMA provides medical aid to needy musicians, lyricists and their dependants. It holds the annual IMA Awards and the Hall of Fame recipients so far include Pt. Ravi Shankar, Lata Mangeshkar, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Kishan Maharaj, Dr. Gangubai Hangal, Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna, Asha Bhosle, Ilayaraja, GirjaDevi and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.

Taking a major step this year, IMA along with Reliance Broadcast Network and Star India Pvt Ltd has launched the country’s biggest music awards -BIG STAR IMA Awards to honour and recognize the excellence in music across all genres annually. The event received huge response from the music fraternity and the masses alike for its telecast on 5th June ’11 on Star Plus.